Summary of Will Durant's Heroes of History

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The Chinese civilization is as old as any known to us, and its history is alive with statesmen, sages, poets, artists, scientists, and saints. The Chinese, like our own ancestors, devised legends to explain origins.
#2 The first famous Chinese philosopher was Lao-tze, who wrote the book Tao-Te-Ching, or The Way and the Right. He believed in the spontaneous impulses of the people, and that they would move the wheels of life sufficiently on their own. There would be few inventions, since these only added to the strength of the strong and the wealth of the rich.
#3 The Chinese philosopher Lao-tze believed that the ideal person was not the pious devotee, but the mature and quiet mind. He believed that wisdom could never be transmitted by words, but only by example and experience.
#4 Confucius was a Chinese teacher who lived from 551 B. C. to 479 B. He taught by word of mouth rather than through books, and he strongly desired fame and place. However, he repeatedly refused appointment from rulers who seemed to him immoral or unjust.

Sujets

• Surveys
• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy
• General officer
• General
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9798822506022
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Will Durant's Heroes of History
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16 Insights from Chapter 17
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Chinese civilization is as old as any known to us, and its history is alive with statesmen, sages, poets, artists, scientists, and saints. The Chinese, like our own ancestors, devised legends to explain origins.

#2

The first famous Chinese philosopher was Lao-tze, who wrote the book Tao-Te-Ching, or The Way and the Right. He believed in the spontaneous impulses of the people, and that they would move the wheels of life sufficiently on their own. There would be few inventions, since these only added to the strength of the strong and the wealth of the rich.

#3

The Chinese philosopher Lao-tze believed that the ideal person was not the pious devotee, but the mature and quiet mind. He believed that wisdom could never be transmitted by words, but only by example and experience.

#4

Confucius was a Chinese teacher who lived from 551 B. C. to 479 B. He taught by word of mouth rather than through books, and he strongly desired fame and place. However, he repeatedly refused appointment from rulers who seemed to him immoral or unjust.

#5

The Chinese philosopher Confucius lived from 478 B. C. to A. D. 705. He was born in the duchy of Lu, and when he was seventy-two, he died. His students buried him with pomp and ceremony, and some built huts by his grave and lived there for three years.

#6

Li Po was a poet who lived during the Han Dynasty. He married, but earned so little money that his wife left him, taking the children with her. The emperor befriended him and showered him with gifts for singing the praises of Yang Ywei-fei, the royal mistress.

#7

China was rich in resources and vitality, and the invader would lose funds or patience before the loins of China would lose vitality. Within a century, China would have absorbed her conquerors and learned all the technique of what transiently bears the name of modern industry.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Civilization, which we have defined as social order and cultural creation, is as old in India as the archeologists care to dig. The Vedas, or Books of Knowledge, were written around 1600 B. C. The first stage of understanding and salvation is patient, persistent introspection. Behind all perceptions and actions, there is the mind itself, and the very consciousness of consciousness.

#2

The story of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, is full of legends. It is unclear whether he ever existed or not. He is said to have left his family and palace to seek enlightenment. He lived on seeds and grass for six years, and then decided that self-mortification was not the way. He abandoned his asceticism and went to sit under a tree.

#3

Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was a man who had overcome anger by kindness, and who sought only to do good to all. He taught through moral parables, or a pithy pentalog like his Five Moral Rules.

#4

Buddha’s conception of religion was purely ethical. He believed that the soul remains after death, and that it can be reborn to another earthly life to atone for sins committed in this one. Sin is selfishness, and until the soul is freed from all selfishness, it will be repeatedly reborn.

#5

The soul of India is heat. It seemed so when we landed in Bombay in 1930, and found that the temperature was throbbing at 92 degrees Fahrenheit. But despite the heat, the Hindus were able to develop a rich literature and architecture.

#6

Gandhi, who had spent three formative years in England, learned to love the British character and to shrink from the darker side of British industry. He felt the influence of William Morris, Peter Kropotkin, John Ruskin, Leo Tolstoi, and the Fabian Socialists.
Insights from Chapter 3

#1

The most famous of rivers, the Nile, watered the settlements that developed on its banks. It offered a liquid road for communication and commerce, and it annually irrigated the lands of the peasants with its dependable overflow. The Egyptians called these settlements nomes, and each local ruler became a nomarch.

#2

The Egyptian believed that he had a spiritual double in himself, which he called his ka, and that if his flesh was preserved against hunger, violence, and decay, his ka would survive indefinitely. The ideal tomb was of stone, and the viscera were to be removed by a sort of Caesarian operation.

#3

The Egyptian economy was planned and regulated by the state. The clergy declared the pharaohs to be gods, and received in return a captivating share of the royal revenue. The moral code in Egypt made no objection to incest.

#4

Egyptian art is rivaled only by the Greek and Roman, but it preceded them by a thousand years. It led the way in many aspects, and its architecture was admired and copied by other Mediterranean countries.

#5

Egypt was a center of religion, and its gods were almost as numerous as in India. The priests were the necessary props of the throne and the secret police of the social order.

#6

The earliest moral development in the ancient East was suddenly arrested when a corrupt priesthood announced that there was only one god.

#7

Amenhotep IV was hardly designed to be a king. He cared more for art than for war, and he loved his wife, Nefertiti. He allowed artists to show him riding in a chariot with the queen. He wrote the most famous poem in Egyptian literature.

#8

Ikhnaton's monotheism was not only one of the great poems of history, but also the outstanding expression of monotheism 640 years before Isaiah. Ikhnaton's god is not tribal, like Jehovah; he feeds and rules all the nations of the earth.
Insights from Chapter 4

#1

The Jews were a civilization that originated in Palestine around 1800 B. C. They were forced to leave their land in A. D. 135, and were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. Their religion, based on the Bible, was used to strengthen their unity, health, morality, and courage.

#2

The people of Israel were torn by intermittent strife among themselves and repeatedly harassed by the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites in peace and war. They eventually demanded a central authority with almost absolute command.

#3

Solomon, the son of David and Bathsheba, was a great king who ruled Israel with wisdom and strength.